Our Doubts Are Our Traitors
by Stars Walk Backward
Summary: The way I see it, who a man calls for on his death bed is the one that really matters... (My take on THAT 'feelings' fever conversation incident in Belize... because I'm still trying to make sense of how it could make any sense in the canon).


_a/n: Alright so... I suppose we all knew, deep down, this was coming... but in my mind, CJ loving Lane could never be canon._

 _So, I started writing this after Episode 4 to try and cope with where on earth these 'feelings' could have come from, if he was being given the level of detail and back story he should have been. I'm not sure this Series is ever going to give him the context that he deserves; he seems to be being reduced to an officer who has a record of cutting off the people who are trying to make him face his PTSD. I'm not sure I'll ever forgive them, if this carries on the way I think it is going to._

 _In my mind, the CJ we know and love would only become distracted by Lane out of guilt and a chronic mental illness brought on by trauma, and part of me strongly believes, even in the series itself, he must still love Molly, because why else would he hallucinate about her and call out for her, twice?_

 _The way I see it, who a man calls for on his death bed is the one that really matters... So, I'm clinging to hope that sanity will prevail, because surely they didn't add that in for nothing? To me, it was the smallest hint that the CJ we love is still in there...even just a little._

 _Anyway, this is my take on what **he** might be thinking in this scene, rather than what we saw. Let me know what you think!_

 _P.S . I would also like to reiterate: this is **not** canon with my existing Our Girl story at all. Sorry TG but I'm just not having it. _

* * *

_"Standing on the platform,_  
 _watching you go;_  
 _It's like no other pain_ _I've ever known._

 _To love someone so much..._  
 _To have no control..._  
 _You said, 'I want to see the world',_  
 _And I said, 'Go'..._

 _Strangers rushing past  
Just trying to get home,_  
 _but you were the only  
Safehaven that I've known._

 _Hits me at full speed;_  
 _feel like I can't breathe_  
 _And nobody knows_  
 _this pain inside me:  
_ _my world is crumbling.  
_ _I should never have let you go._

 _I think I'm lost without you."_

 _ **― 'Lost Without You' – f.r**_

* * *

He couldn't believe the this was how it was going to end.

After everything he had done, all the lives he had lived, the missions he had lead, the people he had saved and those he had lost… he was going to die in the jungle with a fucking _wooden spike_ through his leg – and not just _any_ leg. It was, by some cruel irony, the _same_ bloody leg that had already been reconstructed once already.

The hallucinations, delusions, manifestations, whatever it was they were, began so slowly the for the longest time, he didn't even notice them. He couldn't focus on anything other than the blinding agony in his thigh, the way the barbs cut into his bone every time he moved. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced before – even getting shot. At least with a bullet, you're pumping blood so fast that your body doesn't even have time for you to fully register the pain – you're dying after all. There isn't as much pain in dying as one would think. He just remembered that it felt like trying to tread through quicksand or a strong tide with your limbs made of lead: an impossible task.

This injury however was, in itself, not immediately fatal, so the pain was different; it was like he was being shot, but _continuously_. He was sure he had never made the kind of noises that escaped him in that jungle before and for the longest moment when the spear first pushed through his flesh, he hadn't even been aware he was making them, much less being able to curb them for the sake of his pride. The poor sods in his section must have been terrified, seeing him lose control entirely with such a horrific injury. If he had the capacity to think straight, he would have apologised immediately – especially to poor Richards, whom had to try and keep him still before she could cut him free. As he was now, he found himself, silently, begging for the sweet, numbing relief of death simply because he had no idea how much more of this white hot agony could physically take. He could feel his body was hotter than it should be, sweat beading off him like he had attempted a 10k in the jungle, his chest heaving with the ragged breaths of a desperate man.

All the same, he was still terrified; there was so much he hadn't had the chance to say, _too many mistakes_ the he had yet to rectify… and one oblivious little boy left at home without a father. He hadn't expected being so close to death to be so completely wrapped up in such heavy swathes of guilt rather than regret; he would have never believed such a thing had someone told him so a year ago. He had been so happy then, so together, with a beautiful, _brilliant_ wife, a son he adored on getting to see at the weekends… and a job that gave him all the fulfilment and comradeship he would ever need.

It all felt like some kind of warped fantasy now, almost as though it happened to someone else.

It all began with Azizi, his betrayal setting off a kind of ember inside Charles that smoked up all that was left of his belief in his judgement. He knew going in to the last minute Afghan mission that something bad was going to happen after Azizi had died; the bad omen was too great. Despite that though, he had allowed them to go in anyway. They were ambushed and none of them spotted that bomb… aside from Elvis, of course… and the poor bugger didn't even run.

There was the crux of it: Elvis' death had fractured Charles' soul, as he was sure the death of a loved one always would, but especially because he _saw_ it happen. He knew from his knowledge of blast injuries that he was most likely dead before he had even hit the concrete, but it didn't stop the crunching sound of bone against manmade cement and smattering of brains from haunting him whenever he closed his eyes… or Lane's wails of grief either, for that matter. He had returned home a fractured version of himself, grateful to be alive… but barely. The survivors guilt he felt was unlike anything he had felt before, even greater than that of when he had crawled across the god-forsaken Afghan moon dust to drag back poor Geraint's body… or when Molly had called him, desolate, to say Smurf had dropped dead on the field at West Ham.

 _Molly._

The pain had been so much that he had been unable to think of anything for a while except the fact that they were in danger's path. He had begged Lane to move him, once again feeling the sickening fear of death on his chest like ten regulation six lace-holes, and keeping quiet had been the hardest thing he was sure he had ever had to do. He could feel the blood rushing to his face with the pressure of the breath he held in his lungs so long as he pressed into the in moist dirt. As the sound of the intruding boots passed, he had realised that he had been mentally praying to a God he didn't even believe in.

As the morphine had kicked in, his mind had finally had the luxury to drift. He remembered the warm, swimming sensation of morphine from his previous action injuries, but once under its effects it was hard to separate reality from what his mind was fixating on. He could not stop staring at the swarming colours of the jungle canopy above, strangely fascinated by the free movement of the trees. He had felt like that once, he thought: free to move with the winds of change. If only he still felt that way. Guilt was the iron chains around his ankles, turning him into the bulldozer that reeked havoc through his own life until it had even invaded his secret oasis, the garden he kept walled and hidden where the roses of his love had finally bloomed again thanks to Molly's merciless nurturing and care.

As he lay there now, he couldn't help but feel that he no longer deserved it; perhaps he never did.

By the time Ezra took them down river to the village, the morphine began to wear off and the reality of what may be festering in his leg began to shake what was left of his resolve. It irked him that Lane was trying to cover up the truth, choosing to stay silent when he asked her how long he had until he would lose the leg… or worse. She forgot that he _knew_ her… and he knew basic medical response training. He could guess what she wasn't telling him.

Immediately, it set him on edge. He attempted to distract himself, asking her how the village woman's foot was – and attempting to ignore how much the sight of her treating a stranger out of the kindest of her heart made him think of Molly treating Bashira. What he hadn't expected was for her to suddenly begin firing verbal barbs at him.

 _"What? You going to put it in your After-Action Report? How I got myself 'emotionally involved'?"_

He felt his adrenaline spike with anger at her comment, not least because he was her Commanding Officer, but because it was his duty to fill out those bloody reports and she knew it. He could hardly _lie_ to the Brigadier! He bit his tongue and managed to keep from pointing out the clear truth that had become apparently from their time in Nigeria: if she wasn't so bloody _reckless_ , then he wouldn't have anything to write about.

He was also shaken with the memories that Georgie could never have known she triggered in him by using that phrase. How many times had he lectured his men on the issue over the years, only to have well and truly broken that one rule himself with a female in his charge whom was now his wife.

He blocked off that train of thought, not allowing himself to go there.

 _"I tried to give an honest account––,"_ he tried, watching her back as she refused to look at him.

 _"––Yeah, well, maybe you should question yourself and not me."_

How could she have _no_ idea? He wanted to rage. Did she not _see_ the smoke of guilt staining his insides like a black mark against his every move?

 _"You think I don't question myself?"_ He found he was hurt by her assumption. How could she think so little of his conscience? Was she _really_ so immature? _"All I do is question myself and my role in Elvis'––!"_ He had to stop himself, because he couldn't even say the word. He couldn't open that floodgate, not here. Taking as breath, he heard it shake as he exhaled. _"I know Afghan was my fault,"_ he said, certain, sure. After all, he had been in charge. Still though, she wouldn't let it drop and he felt his insides churning with the same kind of sickness that made him want to tear at his own skin. He was sure he would find black tar beneath it with how rotten he felt inside. _"I trusted Azizi,"_ he said, only narrowly stopping himself from adding, _'because he was a friend from my first tour with Molly,'_ because from the mood she was in, she would no wonder use such a show of vulnerability against him. "It doesn't make me a good soldier." Her lack of response was infuriating him. "How can you be a good soldier when your judgement is constantly _fucked_?!" He was hoping she would read into that last comment, because they both knew he wasn't just talking about himself.

 _"'Emotionally involved'?"_ She sneered, seeming not to hear his admissions of guilt. _"_ I'm emotionally involved with _every person I work with!"_

Now, that sounded familiar. "Yes, well, we all know what happens we cross a line, though, don't we––?"

 _"Yeah,"_ she quipped hurriedly, "like you and Molly."

He had to hand it to her, she wasn't wrong. Either way, hearing his wife's name from her lips shook him a little. Of _course_ he bloody realised what a hypocrite he was for criticising her for it. What she _didn't_ seem to be able to compute however was that the key difference between them was that Charles had never let his emotions become actions on tour in the way Elvis and Georgie had. It had been foolish and utterly irresponsible, not to mention worthy of a severe court marshal. _"Yeah…_ and _you and Elvis,"_ he replied steadily, managing to keep his elaborations on the topic to himself, mostly for the sake of conserving his energy. Looking at her, he was shaken by the shape of her straight brown hair, frizzy around the ears with the humidity, considering for a moment how similar it was to Molly's while she tied hers the same way on their first tour. His fingers suddenly itched to touch it, which shocked him because had never head the desire to touch Lane before at all – nor should he. He was so desperate for softness, familiarity, femininity, all of a sudden. He was so sick of feeling empty. "And _perhaps,"_ he found himself adding, desperate to confess him loneliness, "I crossed a line in my feelings for you."

He heard his own words back a moment later, confused by how they had made it from his brain to his mouth and ended up so far removed from what he had actually intended. He had _not_ intended romantically, surely. He was no adulterer – his capacity for guilt was far too bloody high to ever make such behaviour at all possible – but he could see by the way she halted in her movements that she must have taken it that way. He wanted to apologise, to reiterate what he actually meant, but he couldn't find the words before she spoke.

 _"You have feelings for all the guys,"_ she excused uncomfortably and he was grateful for it. While he did indeed have a strangely paternal affection for his Section, he knew that none of them would ever be so well slotted into his life in both a personal and professional capacity than Elvis and Georgie had. It had always been the two of them together… and now he felt responsible to fill Elvis' place. No, it wasn't rational, but he never claimed it would be… nor did he understand it himself.

He was relieved when they were interrupted, though filled with dread again when he realised that he had to move again, hopping through the undergrowth was growing fatigue. By the time they made it to the jungle, he was exhausted and utterly desolate. Groaning, he clammed his eyes shut, beginning to feel his body shake against his will.

When the screams of the villagers came, Charles clamped her eyes shut and willed himself to fall asleep, but his nerves were so jarred that he jumped at every single crack and creak of the branches. He could feel Georgie curled against his back as he attempted to hold up his pistol straight toward the sounds in the thickness of the trees, trying to ignore the heat of her body, sticky against his back, or the calmness that her feminine touch, against his face, his back, instilled in him. Immediately, his conscience rang loud, slamming him for feeling things about his subordinate's touch that he had once only ever felt at the touch of his wife. It had just been so long… _so_ long…

If he hadn't been worried before, once he almost shot Ezra, he realised that he could no longer even trust his own train of thought, much less his vision, and that petrified him. By the time Ezra had lead them to the cave, he was barely able to keep his eyes open and he couldn't even remember how he managed to arrive here in the moist, cool sand on one leg. He was shivering, his body telling him he was cold as his fever had taken hold, his scalp prickling as his gave up trying to keep his eyes open. The only relief was that he felt safe with Lane as his watchful guard. As she loosened the tourniquet, he couldn't keep him an animalistic groan of relief.

He wasn't sure when he fell asleep, or how, but it was a fretful, disrupted and uncomfortable as he could not move one inch, even in his sleep. That and, even more upsettingly, he dreamt of Molly.

The fever gave his dreams frightening realism and shape, as he relived the day he left Molly at the airfield to come to Belize – a day he had come to intensely regret. They had had a raucous argument the night before, brought on by his distant behaviour and her inability to let things lie. He had, as usual, refused to back down and admit what he had secretly already known, which was that she _was_ right: he _was_ hiding from the truth.

 _'You're splintered right before me' eyes!'_ She had yelled, looking at his with an undeniable pain rather than fury in her eyes. _'I ain't watching you do this – I won't!'_ He had replied defensively, lashing out at her own history of repressing her PTSD which he immediately regretted, because she had suffered enough. _'Get help,'_ she had whispered then, tears in her eyes, _'or leave me. How's_ that _for easy options for ya'?'_

He had reeled at her demand at the time, abandoning the packing of his bergen and gawping at her, his heart racing. _'Don't be ridiculous!'_ He had gasped out, trying not to give in the to the panic in his , what came out of him mouth sounded cynical and indifferent. _'Of course I'm not going to leave you!'_

 _'Well, you may as well if you ain't gonna admit you need help!'_ To say the words shocked him was possibly the understatement of the year. He had stared into his bergen, grappling with how on earth they had gotten here. _'I'm dyin', Charles… You might not want to get help but you can't ask me to sit back and watch!'_ The memory of her brittle confession circled him, seeming to echo against the rock of the cave, making him want to open his eyes and look for her.

 _'You know they'll suspend my duties if I do––.'_

 _'—Well, frankly, maybe that's what you need!'_

 _'Don't you want me to be happy?'_

 _'But you're not happy, you tosser! If you think this is happy then maybe you really are too far gone for even me to reach you. Maybe I'm wasting my breath.'_

 _'Ah, I see. You know what I'm thinking now, do you?'_

 _'No, Charles, that's the fucking point! I don't feel like you even know you anymore! You know, what? I––!"_ She laughed a hollow laugh and dropped her sentence, dejected.

 _"No, go on! Say it,"_ he baited.

 _"I think you think you can't survive without that bloody uniform,"_ she muttered, frustrated and bitter. _"You think you're nothing unless you're off being a hero in some god-forsaken place, that your life don't mean nothin'_. _Ain't you considered how much this is_ hurting _me, to see that you'd rather run off than be here with me? This ain't about being 'brilliant' for you anymore; you're just hiding from normal.'_

It has taken all those weeks of distance from Molly in Nigeria for him to realise she was right, cemented now as he lay, feverish and possibly dying on the jungle floor with a sick feeling in his gut thinking back on it. She had driven him to the airfield the next morning before she was due at the barracks, as was their tradition since she finally got her license, but this time he had barely spoken a word and when he had moved to leave, lifting his bergen from the back seat, she had not attempted to follow him out of the vehicle.

 _'Let me know when you get to base okay, please,'_ was all she said, not able to look at him. He could see the grey of the sky reflected in her eyes that were wet with tears. Her chin was jutted out defiantly as she stared at the horizon. He nodded, moving around the car to leave. He remembered even now how alien it had felt not to kiss her goodbye or have her ask him to come back to her, the way they always did.

 _'I'm coming back,'_ he had said through her window, watching her clenched profile for any sign of a weakened resolve. All he had yearned for in that moment was for one of them to give in, just to see her smile at him the way she used to do, but the words never came. His pride weighed him down and made it impossible for him to admit, in that moment, what they both already knew. Still though, he had told her what he knew she secretly wanted to hear. _'You might not want me to, but as long as it's up to me, I'll always come back to you, Molly.'_

Now as he struggled to breathe evening in the muggy jungle air, he wanted to howl at his past self, even though there was of course no way he could have known just how much he might not be able to keep that promise. Now, he hated himself, well and truly, for not admitting right then and there that she was right: he was not okay and he was hiding behind his uniform. _I'm broken,_ he wanted to say, and when he closed his eyes, he could hear himself saying the words. _I didn't want you to have to fix me because that shouldn't be your job._ He implores her in his head, grabbing her hands and holding her face until she listens. _But I do need you, always. Don't ask me to leave you because I can't._ The furious agony in his leg could not be ignored and it felt like a blazing reminder of his brokenness… both metaphoric and otherwise. Molly looked at him, disappointed, her eyes filled with tears and he couldn't follow her. She disappeared behind the gate of their secret garden, only an eye visible through the gap she held open. He remained banish outside the gates, no longer deserving of a key.

Cool hands mopped at his brow and pushed back his curls, disrupting the scene as it played and like the ripples on the surface on once mirror-like water, it warped until it became something else entirely. He rolled his head, fighting the tugging toward unconsciousness with all his might..

… _How do you get away with them curls, Charlie? Ain't they technically past regulation?_

Molly always seemed fascinated by his curls. She would push them off his face, hold them in her fingers to keep him still as she teased him…stroke them flat when he had nightmares… _Molly,_ he tried to say, but he just didn't have the energy. Her disappointment, the sheer defeat on her face as he had left, it all built up to feel like the weight of the world on his chest. The hands move gently again. This time he is certain whose touch it was; only Molly could touch him so tenderly with hands that were calloused and worn. They mop at his brow and cup the side of his face. He pushes through the fog, the dense jungle of his train of thought, telling himself he must no matter _how_ much his leg hurts, _how_ much his body is begging for sleep… He blinks hard as he opens his eyes this time. Lane is asleep beside him but it is not her that draws his attention.

The sight of Her is unmistakable, standing at the mouth of the cave like something from a Hardy novel: soft and dishevelled in ivory. He recognises the garment immediately: it's her wedding dress. He pushes harder to sit up, ignoring the feeling of being weighed down like there were roots tangling around his limbs and the way his skin felt hot, burning. He has to get to her; that was all he knew. He had to tell her, before he gets lost again.

 _'Ain't you considered how much this is hurting me?'_ Molly asks, her feet in the sand – the reality of the original memory is long gone. _"Because it's bloody hard, Charles. I can't watch you do this."_

"I know! I know that now!" he says, though his voice is not nearly as forceful as he wants it to be, which makes him moan in sorrow. "I never meant––!"

 _"––You didn't have to,"_ she interrupts, her tone low and sad. _"You just stopped trying."_

He shakes his head, feeling there git of sand in his hair. "I'm sorry," he gasped, heaving. It splintered him just as it had the first time. Now though, he said the words that he had been to proud to say. "I love you," he whimpers. "We've been over this: I can't leave you any easier than I could leave my job. Don't ask me to leave you – how the _fucking_ hell could I?"

 _"Then, please, get help,"_ she says, _"You need help._ "

His eyes flicked down to his leg. "Don't I know it," he whispers. "Fuck, it's burning, Molly." He can hear the worry in his own voice. "Am I going to lose my leg?"

She fades, walking into the bright sunshine. He feels the panic in his blood the moment she's out of his sight. _"They need to hurry the fuck up,"_ she says, sounding urgent. _"Where the bloody hell is that Bones wanker?"_

He wants to scream because he can't reach her, but an exhausted groan escapes instead. He extends his hand, whimpering in pain. "Come here," he pleads, a fresh wave of pain making hit gut roll with nausea. "Please."

Suddenly, hands were on his face, mopping his brow again, but the touch is more tangible, firmer than before, so much so that it rouses him. It was only now that he noticed it was dark; his eyes were closed. His entire body jumps at the contact, leaping alert again. _"Molly?"_ He called out expectantly, excited to feel her touch so definitely on his skin, lifting his head from the sand to look for her, except now he found his skull was far too heavy to lift, unlike the relative ease of a few moments before. Pressure was building behind his brow, an ache he could barely ignore. A figure is above him, holding his head, her dark straight hair frizzing into a crown around her head. _Thank god! Molly…_

"No, it's me," a voice said; a voice that wasn't Molly's. He chest tightened as confusion and crushing disappointment sent him reeling again. "I need to drink some more water," Lane adds, pushing the canteen toward him. He stared at her a long moment, trying to compute just _how_ this was possible, because he _knew_ his wife… He knew her like the back of his hand. She _was just here…._ He was sure of it. Immediately, a black mood descended over him as he frustratedly cast her aside.

"Leave me!" he ordered, feeling increasingly hopeless. He was never going to get to see Molly again, he realised, judging by the burning in his leg. It felt like shards of glass were grating through the nerves above his knee. In which case, he was hardly worth wasting time on. He was dying and he knew it, even if Lane wouldn't admit it. She seemed to forget that he had been at death's door before; he knew its undeniable, unavoidable pull like the power of an ocean tide.

"I'm getting you to a hospital, Boss," Lane said forcefully, despite the fact he had closed his eyes to block her out. "That's what's happening."

He was shaking his head, knowing she wasn't even hearing him, but needing to get the words out. "I can't do the job anymore," he says, glancing at her through his narrow eyes. "Molly says I can't survive without it."

She shook her head at him, not taking him seriously. "Save your strength so you can get home to her," she implored, looking into his eyes. His lungs heaved as he tried not to panic at all the words he had yet to say. If only she knew. _She doesn't want me,_ he almost said, but he didn't trust himself not to lose control. _She's had it with me._ Instead, he aimed to be more vague. "She knows," he said, shaking his head.

This seemed to get Lane's full attention. "She knows what?"

 _That I'm a fraud._ "I've been hiding behind the uniform for too long." Looking up into the darkness of the cave, he cannot unseen the look on Molly's face when he had left, or the way she pretended she hadn't been crying when he had come home late from barracks having completely forgotten that it had meant to be their date-night the week before he was due to go. What's worse, he hadn't forgotten. He never forgot significant dates. He had simply been unable to face the inevitable expectation she would have of him to be the husband she once knew, one who could drink wine and laugh and not hear the replays of his dead best friend hitting cement all the while in the back of his mind.

He had somehow managed to revert back to the man he swore he would never be again, the man whom was so rocked by Geraint's death that he drove away his first wife through a complete emotional absence, even when he was home and sharing her bed. He had become his old self again and in doing so, he had failed Molly, for she had never once failed him. "I can't function at home." It was all happening again and he felt helpless to stop it. He glanced at her, deciding to throw caution to the wind. It just felt so good to let the words go. "At work, the uniform is the only thing holding me together."

She had stopped moving and she was looking at him in the way that he remembered Molly looking at him when she had implored to him to keep an eye on Smurf. "Maybe you need help, Boss, okay?" He trained his eyes on her angular, symmetrical features in an attempt to stay focused. "The army _can_ help."

How many times had Molly said the same thing to him? How many times had he shrugged her off, pushed her care for him aside? Why was it that hearing Lane say it made him suddenly feel as though it was something he should have done? Why had he not been spurred into action long before now? Did it really take a spear in one's leg to trigger such basic realisation? No wonder she was done with him...

"She wants me to leave _her_." It felt like an inevitable last stand, saying the words aloud. After all, no one knew outside of the marriage, though he suspected with the exception of Jackie; until now. " _Everything…_ I thought I had…" His voice wobbled with a hint of the tears he was fighting back. "All the things I thought was certain: Molly, the army... everything was… _simple_." He could feel the emotion burning in his throat. "Now, it's all falling apart."

His eyes rolled back into his head as a wave of nausea rolled through him, his teeth beginning to chatter a little with fever. When he dared to look back at Lane, he was looking at her with grave sympathy in her eyes. After all, she knew what that sentiment felt like, surely? He hoped she understood and didn't just pity him. He had had enough of that from his mother.

"I was always so jealous of you guys," Lane confessed suddenly as she checked his leg and forced the canteen in his face again. "Y'always seemed so... in sync, you know?"

Immediately, he groaned, thrown back to a painfully nostalgic memory of Molly making him listen to listen to nineties tripe while she danced around their kitchen. "Oh, god, weren't they a boy band? Molly used to torture me with their shit on in the car." It made his chest hurt to think how much he used the past tense when discussing happy times these days. He used to be a lot of things – chiefly, _they_ used to be happy.

Lane snorted. "Sounds like Molly." She paused for a long moment, seeming to mentally backtrack. "Really though, you both were always so... on it. I remember when Molly rang me before I left for Kenya after you asked me to join Two Section, she asked me to look after you since she couldn't be the one to do it anymore. She said she knew you wouldn't look out for your own safety over us lot so someone else had to do it... and I remember thinking that if I ever got married finally, I'd hope the person would be half as considerate and trusting as that."

Charles squinted, attempting to study her face to try and digest what he had heard. This was the first he had ever heard of any such phone calls and it made him feel ill with inadequacy.

"I don't deserve her," he said mournfully, exhaustion forcing him to close his eyes and give into the darkness. "I'm not sure I ever did."

"With respect, Sir, that's tosh." Her felt her press a damp, cool cloth to his head again.

"It's just so exhausting," he slurred, feeling the current pulling him under again, "Her selflessness is relentless – it makes me feel like a fraud..." Drifting, his head spinning, he groaned with the burning on his leg. "She deserves better... So _much_ …"

He drifted after that, unable to keep hold of the threads of his train of thought any longer. His eyelids left weighted as he slipped back into the inevitable fog of unconsciousness, unable to stir himself awake despite the anxiety that remained in his blood, keeping his heart racing.

* * *

 _"Our doubts are traitors,_  
 _and make us lose the good we oft might win,_  
 _by fearing to attempt."_

 **― William Shakespeare, _'_ _Measure for Measure'_**

* * *

He became aware of water around his knees, brisk and cold, as the British coast would always be. The memory is sharp, the colours like something from a kaleidoscope, fluid and saturated. He feels the familiar grit of sand between his fingers, the chill of Cornish sea air against his skin… and a voice calling for him; a voice that sounded like home.

" _Charlie!_ I told ya! I hate the bloody sea! It's cold and it leaves salty shit on me' skin and it tries to knock me on my arse and I can't swim!" It's only then that he sees her, ankle deep in the foaming surf, stubbornly refusing to move any further in. His old jumper hangs down over her thighs, the sleeves hiding her hands as she pretends not to be shivering with the chill of English dusk. The image is a precious one from deep in his memory. He takes in the sunset, the colours burning in the way his chest did, relentless and distracting. He trudges through the waves as the strength of the tide pulls at his limbs and makes them feel weighed down.

"C'mon now, Dawesy," he hears himself say, "I taught you to swim ages ago!" He feels the softness of the underside of her thighs as he lifts her into a fireman's lift over his shoulder, though he feels no weight of her against him.

"Don't you fucking _dare,_ " she cries from behind him, though she is unable to keep herself from letting a chuckle or two from escaping, strangled, from her throat. " _Put_ me down…on the solid ground… _now._ "

He grins, feeling as light as air as he spanks her hard across her supple bikini-clad behind; the sound of his skin against hers, once so intimately known to him, ricochets through him like a clap of thunder.

They end up back in the dunes on their picnic blanket outside their beautiful hipster canvas tent, wrapped up in one another as they watch the sunset. She shivers beside him and he pulls her inside his body and remembers thinking just how much he wished there never had to be any distance between the two of them at all.

"What?" She asks, feeling him staring at her instead of the sky. He falters, almost losing his nerve; the velvet box in his trunks pocket feels like it might just burn a hole through his skin.

"I just… I'd love to just stay here," he confesses, consumed with vulnerability. "I love the army and I realise now what a miserable git I was all this time, thinking this damn leg might be the end of it all… but it did get me thinking… There's one more thing that I love even more."

" _Wha_ '? Sam?" Molly giggled obliviously, making a face at him. "What _are_ y'on, Charlie? Are y'sure they cleared you at Headley to go back to work an' you ain't banged y'head or some'in'?" He could hear her exact East Ham vernacular, even now, stronger with the relaxation brought on by champagne and sea air.

"Well, yes, of course Sam, but I wasn't talking about––," he sighed, breathlessly laughing at her ridiculousness. "Honestly, would you just stop taking the piss for one second while I'm trying to be romantic?"

"Right, sorry, you tosspot. Carry on."

Taking a deep breath, he gathers himself. "I love you," he says, easily, proudly. "You are brilliant and you deserve the world." She blushes immediately, as she always did when he complimented her. "You are your own person and I don't want you to think that I'm doing this because I think you need to be dependent––."

" _Charles_ … What the fuck are you on about?"

"Marry me," he rushes softly, holding her face in his hands. "And not because I think you need a husband but because… I want you to be secure, if something were to happen––."

"–– _Charles_ ––."

"––Let me finish, please," he whispers, pressing his forehead against hers. "I'm going back in obviously and I realised… I can't go back without knowing that you and I are, in law, as we already are in here," he says, pressing a hand to his heart. "And you might tease me, but I…" He pauses. "I have always believed in vows – I mean, of course I do, I'm a bloody Officer," he quips to himself. "I took an oath to defend queen and country, life, limb or eye… and since then I…struggled to see the importance of anything else… Until you."

She gazes at him, guarded, in the gentle, lovable way she did the very first time he said such a thing to her, when he had been hazy on morphine with two bullet wounds. She looks as though she doubts he means it, which makes him pull her face to his tenderly.

"Now, it feels the least I can do to declare to the world and his wife just how _brilliant_ I think you are… and that this is it for me."

She looks away from him, eyes on the horizon as she chews at her bottom lip anxiously, trying to quash her smile. "You's sure you ain't gone bonkers?"

His nerves dissipate only marginally at her comment. "No, Dawes, I haven't gone bonkers. Now, would you kindly answer me before I have a coronary?"

Tears were caught in her lashes as she gulps, momentarily silent. "You want _me…_ to marry you?" He wilts, endeared and infuriated in equal measure that she still managed to underestimate her worth. Breathlessly, he laughs, unable to believe she could be quite so mouthy while also being so unexpectedly insecure, all at once. " _Yes_. Don't you see?" he whispers, reverent and determined, "It's always been you."

It is only then that she lets herself smile. "Okay," she said, watching him as his expression morphed into one that was, no doubt, ludicrously happy.

 _"Okay?"_ He echoes playfully, squeezing her hands.

"Bloody _yes,"_ she urges, throwing herself against him with the glee of a child on Christmas Day. "'course I will, you mad man!"

He lets out a breath he had not realised he was holding, pulling her frame tight to him. Once eye to eye, they giggle at one another between tender, lazy kisses that slowly morph into a haze of passion for which Charles had no words for. He could feel the scratch of the blanket against his skin as they tangled themselves together with the giddy eagerness of adolescents, her hot breath against his neck, the roll of her hips against his…

His eyes rolled into his head, his jaw slack. His hands were restless, reaching for her and chasing the pleasure of their past life, before everything began to fall apart from within.

 _"Come back to me,"_ she whispered from above him, the fog returning. She's in her uniform, kissing him goodbye. He wants to frown, because that wasn't right. This was not how this treasured memory ends…

" _Molly?"_ He called, but now the tent was empty, the sky dark and the air thick with fog.

 _"You said you always believed in vows,"_ she said, her voice gravely sorrowful. She was suddenly before him, her knees in the sand, rain soaking her from her tidy plait to her uniform. _"Am I not important to you, now?"_

"Yes," he urged, desperately trying to reach her before she wades in too deep into the waves. "You doubt me?"

She looked over her shoulder at him, heavy droplets rolling over the arch of her brow and mingling with her tears. "Yes," she said then, low and dejected. "We both do."

He clamped his eyes shut, willing the warmth of their early memories to return. "I'm sorry," he whimpered pathetically. "She _needs_ me, Molly. You're strong; stronger than us both… You don't need me anymore." She bows her head until he can no longer see her expression.

"But I _love_ you," she utters angrily. "You _know_ there could never be anyone else for me and yet you're shrugging me off!"

"You _asked_ me to leave _you!"_

 _"To get better!_ Not to shag your replacement fucking medic instead! _"_

He felt as though he is in an endless loop; everywhere he turned, he was a failure. He can hear her in the words she chose as much as he could hear his own desolate knowingness; of responsibility, of the vows he made… of his ever-growing list of regrets.

"It's not like that, Molly," he tried to say. "It just feels like someone should take his place, for her sake. She knows what it's like to lose Elvis; she does not look to me and expect––."

"––Expect _what?"_

"––Expect to see the man I was!"

Her expression was desolate, but she didn't fight him on that one. After all, it was the truth.

"Well, then," she said breathlessly, wading into the waves, away from him. "Looks like I is useless to you now then." Guilt stabbed at him as he tried to followed, but his feet were rooted in place. The fog descended until he could no longer see her. The familiar beach turned dark and he struggled against the invisible restraints that seemed to hold him down.

 _Molly, you hate the ocean,_ he wants to scream, but suddenly he finds he can't. _You'll drown in this weather…_

In the darkness, there were flashes of colour, though his skin was burning again. He struggled to push open his eyes, feeling tangible pressure around his upper arm, holding his face. A soft voice rouses him, so close and loud this time that it makes him jump, urging him to push through and open his eyes.

There she is again, her soft brown hair in its usual frizzy crown of baby-hair around her face. He reaches out blindly, unable to focus his eyes on her features, his hands holding on tight to her upper arms. He wanted to pull her to him, to make her understand, to stop her from leaving… and to hold her close, because, bloody hell, he _was_ just a man, after all.

 _"Molly––,"_ he breathed aloud, filled with relief. _She's here,_ his mind cried. _She's not leaving me._

"––No, Boss, it's still just me, I'm afraid."

Not Molly – _Lane_. It was Lane. His heart hammered; he was quietly devastated, staring at her for a long moment. Lane was the one he had come to know like the back of his hand, at the moment more than he knew Molly.

"You don't have Elvis anymore," he found himself saying, trying to express his thoughts as they transformed and warped like sand on the tide.

"But you still have Molly," she replied, ironclad in her resolve.

"We could have each other, maybe." The distance between he and his wife when he had last seen her had been palpable and it made it very easy for him to convince himself, now, that Lane was the person he was now supposed to be there for. He had come to assume that, if Molly was to insist he had to leave her, then that would be the only silver lining; at least he could be the one to fill the void for Lane.

If it hadn't been clear to him, it was clear to Lane: he was lonely.

As he lay in the sand, reeling from the imagery scenes that his _mind_ had created through the fever, that he realised that he truly had no idea what he wanted. If he truly loved Lane, surely she would be the one he dreamed of? He didn't see Lane when he closed his eyes – in fact, he forgot she was with him at all. She was fierce and loyal and a bloody brilliant medic… but she wasn't his wife, the one he vowed to hold above all others. He knew, somewhere deep beneath the rot of guilt, that that mattered, no matter what his lonely body craved from him now. His mind, he conscience reminded him, had always wanted Molly to be the last thing he saw ever since that day in that godforsaken Afghan ditch… but never had that fact been tested and proven more so than in this very moment.

He wasn't sure _how_ it was that he kept moving, but still, he did.

Lane reminded him of who he was, knowing exactly what he needed to hear in order to make it to the extraction point. Once there, the relief of knowing they had made it caused him to inevitably begin to slip under again, this time entirely.

 _"Just know… You mean the world to me,"_ he said, smothered with how grateful he was that she had managed to get them both this far. He wasn't sure why, or where any of it came from, he just knew that he meant it. Regardless though, his mind seemed to have other ideas. It was like every fibre of him _knew_ that this could be it; this could be where everything ends… so his mind gave him what he needed, rather than what he apparently _wanted:_ the one person who always made him feel calm, even when surrounded by thunder.

So, Molly was the last thing he could saw indeed – the shape of her in the clouds, the scent of her shampoo in his nostrils, her cockney insults in his ears – long after his eyes wouldn't open anymore.


End file.
